On His Own Terms
by Brochelle
Summary: The plan made sense, back at the Vannah. Now, staring out over the fading treetops, it didn't make much sense at all. Spoilers for The Parish and Hard Rain.


Disclaimer: Left 4 Dead 2, and all related characters and settings, belong to Valve. I just like to write about them.

* * *

Most days, he watched the sun go down in the evenings.

Usually from the behind the barred windows of a safe house metal door, and usually with thick clumps of foliage obscuring the complete, brilliant, supernatural show of the sunset. Usually listening to the alien birds in the trees, and the voices - the all-too-familiar, reassuring voices - talking in soft tones behind him. Though sometimes it was from a rooftop, an island in the crowded streets, in a town he'd never even heard of, on a horizon still new to him. And yet other times, it was from the open door of a helicopter, speeding over the treetops of some unnamed swamp, accompanied only by the thick drumming of the blades above him and his own thoughts.

He realized it had become a ritual, a constant in his ever-changing life. He had learned that all he needed to support him, to keep him going, was the promise to himself that the sun would set again, and that he would be there to see it. Frowning in concentration, Nick fiddled with the safety catch on his pistol, sliding it back and forth absently. He looked out over the trees bathed in the sunset's golden finery, lost in thought.

Nick had promised himself at the Veteran's Memorial Bridge that he would see this sunset. He would get to that helicopter, and he would watch the sunset knowing he was safe. That was his promise. Everything else about that promise was fulfilled - he was on a helicopter, and the sun was setting, as it always did – except for one thing.

He wasn't safe. Not yet.

Not until he was off this helicopter. Not until the military was far behind him, or eaten by zombies, or both. Not until it was just him and a gun and maybe some abandoned town, lost on the Louisiana horizon, hidden behind the glaring sunset. That was when he'd be safe: when he was on his own, working by his own rules, on his own terms.

_Click. _He left the safety off, and slid the pistol into the holster at his thigh. He cast a wary look over his shoulder_._

He didn't expect to catch Rochelle's eye.

The woman stared at him a moment longer, then pushed herself away from the helicopter's netted interior, and started walking toward him.

Withholding the sudden desire to sigh explosively, Nick turned away and looked back at the sunset.

It didn't hold the same measure of reassurance as it usually did. It was setting too quickly, drowning in the thick bank of poisonous smoke that ringed the horizon, smothering where the sky met the mountains. He wasn't safe yet. He was still here, and until he was_ there_, he wasn't safe.

"-Eight pills. Only eight. Can you believe that?"

Nick's shoulders sagged, the physical equivalent of the sigh he kept in. Turning his head slightly, he watched as Rochelle stepped _– limped? -_ toward him, offering a friendly, warm smile when she looked him over. Her usual gun and axe were absent from her hands - probably dumped back at the dock, in favor of running fast enough to escape the Tank throwing chunks of concrete like a schoolyard bully throws clods of mud. She eased herself down and took a seat next to Nick, tucking her knees up against her chest and wrapping her bruised and bloodied arms around her legs. The entire gesture looked so painful that the man had to try and not wince.

"Believe what?" he said. _Humor the sheep next up for the slaughterhouse._

Rochelle lifted her left arm and indicated the bottle of pills in her hand, shaking it so that the sound of the caplets within clattered briskly against the plastic. "This. Only eight pills in a twenty-four hour period. We've been - what? Downing eight of these in one go? If the zombies don't get us, liver failure will."

She said it with such candid nonchalant that Nick couldn't help a cough of laughter. It turned into a dry rattle, tearing at his lungs and setting them ablaze. He covered his mouth with his arm, simultaneously stifling the hacks and the sudden feeling of panic.

_Sick._

_Infected._

He swallowed hard, lowering his arms and flashing a smirk at Rochelle.

"Yeah. Liver failure."

The woman didn't look reassured by the gesture, but only frowned and looked away, the golden hoops at her ears catching the residual light of the sunset with a flash. Nick remembered being concerned about them, at first - images of a zombie ripping the earrings right out of the woman's lobes were surprisingly worrying to him, almost to the point he considered speaking out and telling her she should take them off.

They were quiet; content with watching the last rays of gold disappear into the spreading night, neither finding the need to speak. Nick looked over his shoulder and watched Coach reapply gauze to a dark and bloody wound on Ellis' chest, unwrapping the gore-soaked strips and letting them coil together on the gridded, metal floor like limp, rosy snakes.

"How's the kid?" Nick murmured. He found himself reaching for his pistol again, intending to play with the safety - a gesture quickly becoming a nervous habit.

Rochelle sighed. She put the pills down in the small space between her and Nick. She unraveled from the tight, uncomfortable position she'd been in, and let her legs stretch out, and leaned back against her elbows. She crossed her ankles and let out a second sigh, her lips quirking in a frown.

"He'll live. He's lost a lot of blood, but the Hunter didn't get him too bad - just paper cuts compared to the time Coach was jumped by that Witch."

Nick shivered involuntarily, struck by the memory of the grisly Ducatel facilities - echoing with the sobbing, anguished cries of the volatile Witches, but muted by the constant drumming of harsh-falling rain on cheap tin roofs. They'd been lucky to escape alive.

"That's good news, right?"

Nick looked at Rochelle. She was already staring at him, a half-smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Her eyes were soft, kind - eyes that reminded him how she was the only one in their quirky troupe who had never gotten angry with him. There had been a couple times in Rayford when his rather negative comments toward the biker had apparently gotten through to her, but she wasn't even angry with him, then - just frustrated. Maybe even a little sad.

But now, she looked at him playfully, prompting him to say that yes, the fact that Ellis was doing just fine was actually good news. Prompting him to humor her just a little longer.

He hid his smile by returning his gaze to the horizon. "Yeah. Yeah, that's good news."

There was that silence again. That moment between them when neither of them found anything to say, yet didn't feel the need to fill the void. Moments like this held the same amount of personal worth to Nick as the sunsets did.

Maybe he was just tired of running.

"The pilot said we'll be at the military base soon," Rochelle said, her tone surprisingly absent of the warmth it had held just moments before. "Then it's hot water, blankets, and fresh food. Home safe."

Nick scoffed, his usual cynicism suddenly ignited. "You know, it isn't safe until every last zombie in the world is dead. Plus, it's the military. When have they done anything except bomb us, and occasionally turn into zombies? We're walking into -"

"-A death trap?" Rochelle interrupted. She stared at him. "Yeah, I know. I remember what those guys back at the bridge said. In Rayford."

_We've had enough of the military._

"But as long as I can go without five minutes of getting thrown up on, cut to pieces, or chewed on, I'm calling uncle. Appreciate the little things, Nick."

He thought back to the Witches. "We both know it's the little things that can kill us. Like a bullet. Or an infected wound. Or hell, maybe even that _little germ that wiped out half the planet."_

Rochelle gave an exasperated huff, shaking her head, but wearing that little half-smile, almost like she wasn't even aware she was doing it.

"Well, what are you going to do about it?" she muttered.

The question took him aback. She was looking at him now, not accusingly, but curiously - like she knew the answer, but wanted to hear it from him. Like she knew.

Not safe yet.

"You gonna run off?" Rochelle said. "Grab a gun and leave us, like you said you would?"

"Look, it just isn't-"

She gave a laugh, a bitter, harsh thing, and looked down at her feet, resting next to Nick's on the ramp. "Actually, that's exactly what you're planning, isn't it? I mean, you said it back at the Vannah. '_Don't bother getting to know it 'cos I won't be around long'_. Remember that, fancy man?"

Nick looked over his shoulder nervously, and saw Ellis, bare-chested and sitting up, staring at them worriedly. Coach's hands were frozen in the med kit's contents and he was giving Nick an accusing look.

_Not safe yet._

"Rochelle, is just isn't safe here. You saw those bodies back in New Orleans. They weren't even Infected. The military _shot civilians_."

His words echoed strangely in his ears. Rochelle was staring at him with a new sort of fire, something deep and angry and hurt, and he couldn't focus.

"We do here what we did there - _stick together," _she hissed. "We work together, we can get through anything. We've been through everything, Nick. Whispering Oaks, that bridge, the swamps - if there's anything else life can throw at us that we can't handle, I'd like to see it.

But really, Nick, I want to know - what were you planning on doing once this helicopter landed?"

The words were frozen in his throat. He couldn't find the energy to retort, to insist on a lie that seemed so ridiculous now that he'd heard it from Rochelle's mouth. He was going to run, get away from this tangled mess he'd wrapped himself up in, to break free from these people that he had never intended to grow close to. He hadn't wanted to learn their names. Giving them names made them human, and they just couldn't be, because it they were - if they weren't nameless, wandering morons waiting to be eaten by the hordes of undead - then he would care. Then they would be people, and he'd left enough people behind that at this point he'd been forced to learn the value of appreciate those left.

He wasn't supposed to grow close to these people. To Coach, to Ellis, and especially not Rochelle.

Nick stared at the darkening horizon, reduced to a dull orange glow flanked by faint stars.

His plan still stood. He had to go.

_Not safe._

* * *

A/N: Written in an hour for practice.


End file.
